MET­ALS

GOLD edged up to about $1 200 an ounce yes­ter­day after bet­ter-than-ex­pected US eco­nomic growth data boosted the dol­lar only briefly and as the mar­ket looked to a Swiss ref­er­en­dum on cen­tral bank gold re­serves for more trad­ing cues.

Gold was fixed at $1 199 an ounce (R422 627 a kilo­gram) in London yes­ter­day, $1.50 stronger than Mon­day’s fi­nal fix.

A rightwing Swiss party called the Novem­ber 30 vote, aim­ing to pre­vent the Swiss Na­tional Bank from of­fload­ing its gold hold­ings and oblig­ing it to hold at least 20 per­cent of its as­sets in gold, com­pared with 8 per­cent last month.

While opin­ion polls showed that support among Swiss vot­ers for the ini­tia­tive was fad­ing, a “yes” vote could boost prices in the longer term, traders said.

“The polls in­di­cate a “yes” vote is un­likely… if it hap­pens, we could see a short­lived re­ac­tion in the price of gold, but it’s not like other cen­tral banks will follow, be­cause it wasn’t a cen­tral bank decision,” said Natixis an­a­lyst Bernard Dah­dah. – Reuters